Omkar Sonmali

Iterative Design, Prototyping

Simplifying Study Room and Spaces Reservations on University Website

Overview

As a part of one of my core classes in the MS-HCI program, ‘Information and Interaction Design’, students were divided into teams and tasked to rework a website or an app flow they thought could be improved. We chose RIT's facility reservation website- RIT Events for this.

Deliverables: User Research, Competitive Analysis, User-flows, Wireframes, Mockups, User Testing results

My Role

While working as part of a team of 3 —2 MS HCI students, 1 MFA student— to redesign the overall website, we all contributed to each phase of the project, research, ideation, visual design. However, my major focus was on redefining and validating the user flow before moving to final designs.

Outcome

38% increase in efficiency

Decreased the total number of steps to complete tasks like booking a facility.

50% increase in user satisfaction

Post task survey indicated users preferred the redesigned website.

Problems in current design

We started the project by analyzing the existing flow and conducting a quick heuristic evaluation to discover any critical and obvious usability problems. We also asked current RIT students about their opinions concerning the user experience. The following problems were found:

01 Complex Navigation

Poor organization of reservation templates
Elements scattered across different pages
Lack of flexibility to modify bookings

02 Confusing User flow

The system requires multiple(7-8) steps to complete a simple room booking
Redundant steps including pages and actions

03 Lack of Visual Hierarchy

Cluttered layout
Multiple CTA buttons
Delayed feedback for errors

The users of the website

The users include students, faculty and staff, student organizations, and event coordinators. Each user group has different needs, but they all require an easy, flexible, and efficient booking process. To understand end ensure the design aligns with users' end goals, we defined JTBD statements for each of the user group.

Understanding the current system

We read the documentation of the system and talked to RIT's IT team to understand the whys behind certain limitations we noticed during the research. We kept these limitations in mind during our redesign process to make it more realistic.

Study rooms can be booked in 1 hour slots at a time.

This was done to avoid students hogging the study rooms by booking them back-to-back and make it accessible to everyone.

Templated are defined by the org using the system.

The templates basically determine the flow of the system based on the option users select.

Only 4 bookings are allowed in a day across the system.

This was again done to avoid students misusing the system and giving everyone an opportunity to reserve facilities.

Industry Analysis

An industry analysis of current booking websites helped us understand the industry best standards, visual design pattens, and user flows for different booking processes. The main observation was use of progressive disclosure and flexibility on these websites so that the user is not overwhelmed with information and form fields.

Design Goals

We defined goals after careful consideration of the research findings and industry analysis. Defining these goals helped focus on the optimal level of structure and the flow of the website.

01 Flexible

Improve filtering, categorization, and labeling to help users find information faster.

02 Simple

Streamline the booking process and help users easily complete their tasks.

03 Coherent

Focusing on user jobs and workflows by enhancing hierarchy and improving usability.

Design Approach

01 Establishing better user-flows

Based on the research, we started designing the basic user flow for the most complex booking flow, and simplifying it for less complex task like booking a study room. I outlined the major steps and pages that user will go through, before going into the details. I was able to decrease the number of steps taken to book a facility from min of 8 to 6 overall.

02 Reducing redundancies

The current user flow contains many redundant steps the user has to go through. For example, users are prompted to select a setup type even when it wasn’t available. To improve usability, we modified the flow so that the setup selection is only required when the chosen reservation type supports it; otherwise, the option remains inactive.

03 Intuitive Interface

For an intuitive navigation experience, we combined elements that were scattered throughout one or multiple pages. For example, the current "My Bookings" page does not have a coherent calendar which makes it difficult to navigate. We replaced the elements with a dedicated calendar for easy navigation and more flexibility.

We also added edit and delete options for each element of the list, which allows user to modify an existing booking with fewer clicks making the process more efficient giving users more control.

The revised booking interface

In my initial designs, I made few changes to optimize how users select filters, and how errors are handled, while keeping the room selection interface almost unchanged as it was a flexible way to select a facility, though not efficient. However, user testing revealed that users don't necessarily need that flexibility especially if it comes at a cost of efficiency and usability.

An interesting insight was that due to variable room sizes and capacities, user would like to know what a room/facility looks like .

Sometimes users also just want to explore rooms/facilities on a fixed date without a fixed time in mind. I made changes to the interface to keep time as an optional filter before viewing the facility

Revising the booking interface

The current design of the booking interface is flexible and allows users to compare multiple facility availability/unavailability times instantly. However, similar to other pages, it is clunky. We started ideating different ways to make the UI cleaner and intuitive but keep it as flexible as possible.

Option 1:

Select time and duration -> Select Room -> Confirmation
Good: Flexible time selection
Limitation: Not intuitive to change time. No clear indication

Option 2:

Select reservation type and date -> Select Room -> Confirmation
Good: Clear indication. Can compare multiple rooms.
Limitation: Restricted to 1 hr. time slots. No clear indication

Option 3:

Select reservation type and date -> Select Room -> Confirmation
Good: Clear list of rooms.
Limitation: Non-flexible time selection. Cannot compare availability directly.

We made our option 2 as our final choice after weighing the pros and cons of all the ideas.

Assumption: People need at least one hour of the room/facility they are booking.

Pros: This allowed them to book the max amount of time the system allows them to book currently while also providing more than enough time if they need it for less time.

Restriction: Users can only select times starting and ending at 00 mins.

Final Results

Simple and coherent experience

Based on the research, I started designing the basic user flow to book a facility and edit a booking. The goal was to minimize the number of steps while avoiding major structural changes and maintaining the same sequence of tasks. For this, I removed any redundant steps, and combined and/or split page elements as required to make the navigation intuitive.

Reflection

What did I learn from this project?

Our primary objective was to uphold the essence of the current website and RITs brand, and focus on refining and optimizing the elements that resonated well with users while simplifying areas that detracted from their overall experience.

I developed a design strategy that focused on achievable improvements while considering the practical implications of implementation. This approach ensured that my design decisions were not only desirable from a user experience perspective but also feasible within the context of the operational and technical realities.